Русский 
English Making lighting for roombox
Or read this in Russian
Remember that art nouveau roombox that I made some time ago? It was sold but came back to me, because I was asked to make lighting for it. That flower chandelier was made especially for this room. I also needed to make that Tiffany table lamp functional. I decided to try LEDs for this project. They are much brighter and don’t burn out as often as usual bulbs. I was looking for warm light LEDs for quite a while, and I was lucky to find very small (5 or 3mm, I don’t remember) and very cheap ones. So the first problem was solved.
The only problem with LEDs is that you have to find appropriate resistors, so say hello to physics course at school you hated so much. Ohm’s law – I had to look it up in Wikipedia for the first time in so many years. I had the resistors I needed but all this counting, colour code etc. was a bit too overwhelming to me. My husband though was curious enough to find a good video about so called LED drivers that would eliminate my problem with resistors. Here it is – http://www.chipdip.ru/en/video.aspx?vid=ID000306334. To make it easier for you, these LEDs drivers provide constant current of 20 mA in a circuit (most LEDs that I have are 20 mA), so you don’t need to count anything just connect this driver to a simple circuit. It’s very small by the way:
From the left to the right – small case for three drivers, driver itself and driver with small pins to make the soldering easier. So if you lazy to learn all this Ohm’s magic, drivers will save a lot of time for you.
For my chandeliers I used three LEDs, they are very small, so it wasn’t a problem.
All the wires from it are connected to the small wooden box above. I wanted to fix it somewhere behind the box, but then I though that it would be easier to use the switches if they were above, so there you are. All the connectors and drivers are hidden inside the box.
On the left you can see two switches that turn on and off the chandelier and a table lamp. The connectors (those white little things) allow you disconnect the light from the box if you need. Usability at its best 🙂 The blue thing connects the power lead, no batteries here. The box looks very old school to me, love it! 🙂
Table lamp was a bit easier and more difficult at the same time. I had to disassemble it at first, then I soldered the LEDs right to the brass post. As you can see I also made a plug with a polymer clay and a socket out of mahogany. Yep, it’s a bit too big, but I had no choice really, I’d never be able to use a router here to make a groove for the socket. On the other hand, there will be a table there and a bedside table, so it will be well hidden behind.
So here it is, all done and shining. I’d never been able to make such a huge amount of work without my husband, he was a great help with all the electronic stuff. Lots for me to learn, that’s for sure.
Aaand one more photo. My failed attempt to make another chandelier, looks nice, but I used too many crystals, so I need to disassemble it and start all over, alas.